Al-Nusra

Members of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) are fleeing Syria for safer positions in Iraq, as rival Syrian al Qaeda forces also began moving their forces to avoid U.S. bombing attacks, according to U.S. officials and reports from the region.

The Obama administration’s war on ISIL included the first direct attack on traditional al Qaeda terrorists in Syria during airstrikes Monday. Officials said the strikes were aimed at heading off an imminent terror attack against the United States or Europe.

JERUSALEM—The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) has begun operating sleeper cells in southern Syria near the border with the Golan Heights, according to a spokesman for the moderate rebel group, the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri issued a public appeal recently urging an ultra-violent splinter faction of the terrorist group to return to Iraq and cease fighting rebels of the al Nusra Front, the official al Qaeda franchise in Syria.